Writing Prompt...

So I've been listening to Wil Wheaton's new podcast and I absolutely recommend it. It's called It's Story Time with Wil Wheaton. And that's it, it's him reading you a story. If you were a fan of Levar Burton Reads you will love it.

The stories so far have all been really good. He's good at narration, he should be, he has been narrating audio books for years, and the stories he has been choosing are all solid.

I've also liked them because I've gotten story ideas from almost all of them You'll notice there has been a weekly short story (or stories) here lately. After having a dry streak of inspiration that's been really nice. So they've been not only fun little short stories to listen to, they've been effective story prompts as well.

Writers read. That's one of the first lessons I picked up when starting to even think about writing fiction. If you want to be a writer you really should be a reader. For a lot of reasons, lessons in voice and flow and what works and what doesn't work and, yes, inspiration. I am sure that there could be a think piece, if not a whole book, about how all fiction is really fan fiction if you get right down to it. It might not be as direct as lifting the characters and settings from something you liked and expanding their story but just hearing a line, or exploring a concept, or just thinking "If I was telling a story like this I would..."

Years ago Dana and I did one of our exchanges but we shared writing prompts. I think we did something like a half dozen stories where we started with the same prompt, each wrote our story, then shared them with each other and then with you all. It was always fun to me to see how different we took the directions. Though there was one (and maybe I'll go look later but for now I don't want to take the time) that we both took a prompt (I don't remember what it was) and ended up writing about high school. It must have been something terrible.

So today's story on the podcast was another good one. It was a theme I write about all the time, but done in a totally different way. I really liked the idea. Basically what happens if you are given a glimpse at an alternate reality, or timeline, that you liked better than your current one, but you could never get back to it. What would that do to you?

And instead of thinking of a fictional piece I thought about our lives. Like right now. A lot of us make the not really a joke but joke about living in the worst timeline, or the stupidest timeline. And it didn't have to be like this. In my lifetime we've gotten glimpses of what a better future would be like.

I remember a pundit talking about Fox News when Obama was elected. He said that we didn't need to listen to what they said anymore, they were no longer relevant. They would just fade away and we should just let them. At the time I thought he was being flippant but I did like the idea of it. Were we really at a point where that doom and gloom outlook was not what we the people wanted? Turns out we were not at that point and we really like to be told how scary and dark everything is and would rather vote for American Carnage than the woman. Because we live in the worst timeline.

Then Trump was kept to one term and stable steady Biden came in. Smoothed everything back over, got everyone back on track, made politics boring again. Then we had the chance to elect someone who was more than ready for the job. Would have kept that even keel going and also possibly, just possibly, smoothly steered us even farther forward. And instead Trump was voted back in after campaigning on things that would turn everything to shit and everything indeed has gone to shit. And again, I have to think a large part of it was because there were still a lot of people who couldn't imagine voting for the woman. Because we live in the stupidest timeline.

So what is it like to live in this reality after getting glimpses of a different one? What does that do to a person?

It makes them angry.
It makes them sad.
It makes them scared.
It makes them depressed.
It ages them at an accelerated rate.

The fact that it could have been better is so frustrating. That we (the general we, not me or you specifically we) chose this inferior timeline. Twice.

I don't have to imagine what it would do to your psyche to be trapped in what is your real life when you've been given a glimpse at a better one. I'm living it.

No wonder I write fiction.